Modern cable service providers provide myriad services to their subscribers. These services include television, high-speed internet, telephony, FM radio, and other services. Typically, these services are provided using a set top box (STB) located in the subscriber's home. The STB tunes, filters, and demodulates television and other signals transmitted from the cable provider.
Subscribers interact with the STB to access the services they subscribe to. Generally, this access is provided though a run-time environment or user interface (UI). Typically, a UI comprises a collection of binary files controlled by an operating system. A user interface (UI) is a bundle of application software that makes up a user interface. An exemplary UI is the “iO R4 User Interface” used by Cablevision Systems Corp. of Bethpage, N.Y.
Oftentimes, a cable provider would like to perform a test of a portion of the cable communication system or conduct a trial for new software or features. In such cases, the cable provider would prefer to provision a selected group of STBs for the test or trial. Further, there are times when a cable provider may wish to perform a “phased” roll out of new software or features. For example, when new software, such as a new user interface (UI) version, is released, a cable provider may wish to update groups of STBs with the new UI over time to provide time for receipt and evaluation of subscriber feedback and identification and resolution of bugs in the test or trial system. Such selected provisioning or phased rollout minimizes the impact on the system by limiting the number of subscribers exposed to the test or trial.
However, in conventional cable communication systems, cable providers generally provision set top boxes (STBs) in an “all-or-nothing” manner. That is, all STBs in the subscriber base have the same base software and provide the same base UI on a system by system basis. As a result, targeting a particular group of STBs with particular software or in such manner as to limit exposure to test or trial software is difficult. Put another way, it is difficult to direct a first set of software or features to a first group of set top boxes, a second set of software or features to a second group of STBs, a third set of software or features to a third group of STBs, and so on. As a result, testing new software or feature offerings or conducting trials using a selected group of STBs can be difficult or impossible in a conventional cable communication system.
Instead, to provision STBs in convention cable communication systems, typically, a single application software image is distributed, or flags are hardcoded into software associated with a particular software package or feature set. The flags affect the state of the STB when the STB is rebooted. In one state, a flag allows the STB to activate software associated with a particular service. In another state, the flag does not permit the STB to activate software associated with a particular service. In this manner, STBs can be provisioned to allow selected services or feature sets.
However, as described above, in conventional systems the flags are applied in a global manner for all STBs in the system, not on a per STB basis. This is because the flags are set in the new software provided from a head end that controls STB provisioning in the system. Because the head end provides the same software to all of the STBs in the system, all STBs in the system are provisioned with the same features sets. As a result, in conventional cable systems, testing and trials can be performed only on a global or very limited system by system basis.
A further problem with conventional cable provisioning systems is that STBs must be rebooted to update new software when the STB receives the software. Downtime during reboot is inconvenient to subscribers. Because subscribers rarely anticipate such downtime, cable provider call centers are often impacted due to increased subscriber calls. As a result, such updating is done as infrequently as possible. Counterbalancing this desire to limit service disruption due to STB rebooting is the desire to provide new products and services as quickly as possible. A cable provider cannot provide services as quickly as possible if they are hampered by having to consider issues associated with STB reboot prior to providing those services.